


take me

by katotastic000



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Ishimaru Kiyotaka as Ishida | Kiyondo, M/M, Male Pronouns for Fujisaki Chihiro, Self-Hatred, ishimondo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katotastic000/pseuds/katotastic000
Summary: The last days before Kiyotaka Ishimaru's death and the first days of what comes after.
Relationships: Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo
Comments: 10
Kudos: 122





	1. away from here

He is gone now. He has not left behind a body to bury or a picture to mourn. His room is locked and rattling at the doorknob for half an hour before Monokuma dangles the keys in front of his face and swallows them does not change that fact.

Kiyotaka does not sleep. He is tired for sure, he has passed out multiple times already but only for mere minutes before waking up on his cold bed, a wet stain where his head lays. He has lost the feeling in his legs what feels like longer than his life ago and if he could move his hands, his face would be numb to the touch and crusted with dried tears.

He sobs. A quick burning pain flashes through his chest and he bites his lip and whimpers. It hurts, everything hurts. The air he inhales claws and scratches at his throat and his lungs. Some hours ago, he had tried to suffocate. He had had enough of his crying, his sobbing and that no one answered. But the pillow was too thin to hinder the air, the supporting beams too close to the ceiling to hang a belt and the sink was too shallow to hold enough water.

They had shared a single night in Mondo's room. Flags covered the walls and clothes laid sprawled out on the floor. It smelled of hairspray and the sheets on the bed were a mess. Though Mondo had warned him about the state of his room, Kiyotaka had insisted that he wanted to stay.

In the darkness, Kiyotaka's eyes wandered over the walls, the ceiling, the furniture. He needed to stay awake to take everything in. Asleep, he would not feel Mondo's weight and warmth on his back. The bed was too small to fit the both of them separately, so they did not seperate. Mondo had slung one arm around his waist and with the other, he supported his head. His forehead rested on Kiyotaka's neck, his slow breath brushing Ishimaru's bare shoulders. He mumbled in his sleep and Taka listened to the unintelligible murmurs, smiling at the feeling of Mondo's lips grazing his skin.

Taka had been confused when Mondo declined his invitation to stay in his room on the second night. Now he knows why.

His room is empty and silent. The walls seem naked and cold, the sheets too smooth despite Taka's turning, curling up and shaking. No one is beside him, no one beside him mumbles or breathes. The silence clings to him like foil and wraps itself tightly around him. This is his and only his room, sterile and cool, filled with only him and the memories of a single day.

The morning announcement. His arms ache and shake as they lift his upper body. They break down once, then twice and then succeed. His legs are too heavy to lift, they drag themselves under him and he kneels. His boots are still on his feet and the stiff leather is reluctant to bend. Holding onto the bed's headboard, he stands. Throbbing is crammed in his head and his sight shifts between black and white.

With one hand on the walls, he makes it to the dining hall. His movements are slow like his joints have rusted overnight, like something wants him to stop, the foil wrapped around him.

They all stare at him, at the shell that is left. He is late. On a chair at the other end of the table, he sits down. And he stares, too. Out of his dry and swollen eyes, he looks at every single one of them. Some turn away, some curve their lips to something that is not worth calling a smile. Conversation has erupted somewhere, and he doesn't listen. They have faced the speakers and joined. Taka faces the table and keeps silent, wrapped in his tight foil.

Someone appears next to him. A word, distant and drowned, said three times and still, he doesn't look up. A hand places on his shoulder, so heavy that his body leans a little to his left. Then something is thrown around his frame. Heavier than the hand, so much heavier and long that its hem drops on the floor. He turns his head and its high collar pokes his cheek. He gasps for air.

The leather is almost fluid under his fingertips, the embroidery parting the even surface. He grasps for the empty pockets. His hands move beside him to get hold of the sleeves. Empty as well.

The sobbing has started again. Dry, no tears, out of a hoarse throat. The sleeves hang dead from his shoulders. He has buried his face into the collar, desperately searching for something on the coat. A hair, a black smudge, a scent, something. Nothing. There is nothing left of him.

Everyone has left and he is still here, on the chair, legs brought up to his chest, arms clasped around his shins. His forehead is pressed against his knees and he only sees the white of his uniform. By now, he has let go of the leather.

So this is Mondo's legacy. His coat and that something around whose shoulders it is wrapped.

There is no point to Kiyotaka Ishimaru anymore. There is no space for thoughts and hopes and dreams alongside of pain. Pain has spread through his body, every vein, every nerve, every bone and has consumed Kiyotaka Ishimaru. It is pain now, in its limbs, in its face and chest and in its heart. Pain has taken away Mondo Owada, has taken away Kiyotaka Ishimaru and it would not be long until its pain would be taken away as well.


	2. love me and make me whole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so freaking weird and I had so much fun writing it that I almost feel bad.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you can guess who the narrator is!

Mondo loves me. I know that, I _know_ that, he has to if he says such things to me. Mondo is dead, gone, a murderer, slaughtered and a slaughterer but he lives on. You, on the other hand, have died. And nobody cares.

Your classmates didn't talk to you after it happened. You were screaming and crying and your fingernails broke and left bloodmarks on the grimey floor when the woman picked you up like a sack of gnawed off bones. You clawed at the ground and whined that you want to stay. Oh wait, you didn't speak. You just made noises, you croaked and whimpered like someone sewed your mouth shut with six stitches.

You wanted to stay in this dark, dirty deathhole, the blinding headlighs still spinning cheerfully about the circus stage, the cage silent, cold and empty. You missed rattling at the chain-link fence. It was cool to your touch and froze your blood in place, it stopped the pain from circulating. It was loud enough to muffle your screams. Until the electricity was turned on; you heard the humming and sizzling over your own voice.

The woman took you anyway. You punched her, remember? You kicked her in the chest as she carried your body over her shoulder. You pummeled her back as she did. And she apologized in her and her friend's name, she had called your friendship simplistic just the day before. You rammed your fist into her shoulderblade for that and the woman didn't move and carried on.

Even though you couldn't shut up all the way from the basement to the dorms, nobody looked at you. Nobody spared a gaze for poor you. Poor, weak, stupid bastard you. The woman laid you down on your bed and left with a hopeful "Until tomorrow." You crumpled your sheets in your fist and screamed. Just screamed, just noise and it cut your throat.

You tried to end it, several times actually but nothing worked. Your room hindered you, there was nothing to loop your belt around and the water was turned off. The tools would have worked if you thought about for just a little moment longer. But you're just too stupid. You know, you could have rammed a screwdriver in your brain, it's an easy way out, but no. Sadly, you're too stupid.

You hate Mondo. Mondo is a murderer, you think and you get the fitting payback. You are now unworthy of the other's attention. They ignore that they can see the bonework through your skin, that every night, you add a bruise and a scar to your right arm, that sometimes it doesn't stop bleeding and stains your uniform.

Two of the others don't understand. They help to keep you alive. They place full plates in front of you and don't leave until you take a bite. They walk you back to your room and check on you twice every day. They try to talk to you. The one sprawls out cards in front of you that he says are omens that you'll be fine again. The other brings a stack of books from the library for you and tells you that hope never dies.

They're wasting their time with you. Wasting vital oxygen, energy for their tongues to move, thoughts for their words to form. You're like the incinerator down the hall. You eat up everything and let it turn to ashes.

The nightmares keep you awake. In every of your dreams, you kill Mondo. You stab a knife in his stomach and he spits blood. You bash his skull in and he falls to your feet. You choke him and drool runs down his lips. He whispers your name, asks you why and before you can open your mouth to tell him you're sorry, you wake up and vomit.

You're not sorry. You hate Mondo. You killed Mondo. You pressed the button on yourself but look at you. You just stood there and watched the electricity turn on. You weren't running to him. You weren't clinging to him. You said that you'd let someone take your life for his but look where you ended up. You have died and Mondo lives on.

Mondo loves me. Mondo is the heart that pumps my blood, he is the brain that makes me move, he is the soul that completes me. Mondo will never let go of me. He will stay inside of me, he will fill me up, he will make me whole for all eternity. Mondo is the only reason for me to exist.

I can feel him. I can feel his hands on the bone of my shoulderblades, caressing the dry and solid surface. His breath on my carotid, pulsing at the warmth in his direction. His kisses on my skin where all the vessels and nerves connect to their systems.

I fall asleep to him whispering that I'm worthy and I wake up in his coat. I live my days, the repetive days with Mondo repeating that he loves me.

You? Mondo has abandoned you.

* * *

Why didn't you warn me? Why did you keep it a secret that dying hurts so much?

I can't think. My head is just pulsing, just pounding, just pain. It's cold, the air's so cold on my skin, my bone, my brain. My brain tastes air for the first time. My blood warms but burns. Does it sizzle? I hear sizzling. It drips into my eye and flows heavy on my lids. I can't keep my eyes from closing, the slid of light grows narrow, the light grows blinding and suddenly I see nothing but dark.

I don't want to die. I cannot afford to die. I am not allowed to die. I have to keep Mondo alive. You and I have nothing left to live for but Mondo. You have to feel your guilt and I have to feel his love. Without me, Mondo can't exist. I can't kill him, I can't murder him. I owe him too much.

Did Mondo wait for you when you died? Did you fall into his arms or did you kill him again?


	3. for a fool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been listening to "[Burn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0k0FJrY4a8)" non-stop while writing this

Kiyotaka wakes up and sees the floor. The tiles are green like rotten peppers, faintly coated with something that was maybe red before. It's more of a crust, some spots are fading, some spots have dried to matt blotches. The crust is flaky and when Kiyotaka breathes out, the flakes take flight. It ends some inches away from his nose and dust is stacked up on the edge like castle walls.

His hand moves to the back of his head without him thinking. His hair sticks to him and winds around his fingers like seaweed underwater, dragging him farther down to the dark ground. He feels less skin than bone at the spot he touches. Following one stray stripe of flesh leads him into a hole, the abyss and had he moved any faster, the cliff of splintered bone would have cut his fingertip open. Kiyotaka lets his hand fall to his side again.

It doesn't hurt, poking around in his fatal wound doesn't hurt, doesn't evoke any feelings. Kiyotaka is dead. Thinking back to what he was like just a day ago, maybe that is for the best.

Kiyotaka gets to his feet and he has no efforts to do so. His legs work fine, his sight is clear, as well as his head. The pink on his chest catches his eye. Looking down, his entire uniform jacket is colored in the same faded red as the floor and looking further down, the stain extends to the spot where he had just stood up from.

He turns his head. The storage room is empty and silent. He hears his own breath through his nose. Kiyotaka remembers.

The note. 6 a.m. Why did he believe that someone truly found an exit? Maybe that was intentional.

Hifumi. One knock with the hammer and it's over. His life is over. For him, it's like a class has passed and he's moving to the next. This nothing feels too heavy and Taka can't do nothing but stare at his chest for a while.

Kiyotaka decides to start walking out of nowhere. The strangely colored lighting in the halls make the air seem unbreathable. His steps echo but are never heard. Eventually, he reaches the first floor, right across the dormitories. For a brief moment, he wonders where he is headed and what is taking him there. The questions don't stop coming, stacking in his head, unanswered. He asks himself if he should be happy to have something on his mind again. Where is he? Why is he here? Will he stay? Is he the only one here?

He hears a door fall into its lock and the question vanish like a stack of paper in a gust of wind. The noise seems to come out of the hallway in front of the dorms. He is not alone. Is that good?

A figure appears behind the walls. A shadow. A shadow, living in the back of Taka's head, that he had known once, that he keeps remembering without regard to himself. Turned into unrecognition. Thin, pale, shoulders sunken in, his entire frame seemed ruptured and gracelessly glued together but the glue is just not drying. His hair is short.

His name clogs Kiyotaka's throat and lets no air in and out. He has to say it or he'll suffocate, it's creeping up his tongue and his gag reflex sets in but before he can spit it out, he's gone.

Kiyotaka realizes that he is not alone. Everyone else is, with high chances, here as well. Given that he was real, back then, the phantom in the hallway. Kiyotaka settles to wait. He takes a look at his watch, sees the clefts in the glass and puts his hand down. With nowhere to go, Kiyotaka enters the dining hall and waits for something he has never heard the name of.

Somewhat later, the door opens. Kiyotaka looks up and he starts crying, feeling like a new man. The warmth of tears on his face is soothing like they're washing off something that was never there.

Chihiro rushes over to him. He stops and stares for a moment, Kiyotaka can feel his eyes getting lost in the abyss in his head, his mouth fallen open. Kiyotaka returns the gesture. First, he notices that the programmer's forehead has cracked and split and bled. Chihiro's eyeball has popped out, not entirely but enough to show more white than iris. It's then that Ishimaru sees the dent in his head, hidden by his hair, their roots dyed with the familiar hint of red.

"I'm so sorry," Chihiro begins. "that you-" Fujisaki sucks in his words with a sob. His fingers clutch around the hem of his jacket. "I should be the one apologizing." Taka sniffs. "Sit with me." He gestures to the chair next to him and Chihiro accepts with a quiet thank you.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, okay?" He curls his hands in his lap and it's impossible that more concern could flow out of his round eyes. Kiyotaka shakes his head. "If I had tried harder, I surely would have found a way to stop-"

His breath ceases. He jerks in the attempt to set himself free and his face wrinkles like a prisoner banging at the bars. Tears keep rolling down his cheeks, some misguided to his lips, to his jaw but all collecting at his chin. Kiyotaka swallows and inhales.

"I would've found a way to prevent this," he chooses instead, voice rough. Kiyotaka can go on, he notices. If he'd only insisted, if he had clung to him and ordered that he stayed with him, that they shared a room again, that night. Kiyotaka is complicit. He clears his throat.

Chihiro interrupts his thoughts. "Please don't put the blame on you!" His hands have formed fists on his skirt and his brows have furrowed. "You couldn't have known, and, and-" He stops when Taka bows his head. "Thank you, Chihiro. But I have to deal with this myself."

Fujisaki lowers his head. "If you say so." When he blinks, his eyelids don't fit around the popped out eyeball. Kiyotaka can see the muscles holding it in the socket tense and relax as it moves.

"Did you run into the others yet?" Chihiro asks and with the change of topic, Kiyotaka wipes off his face with his sleeve. "No." He leaves it at that. He hasn't thought about what to say to Sayaka, who planned to betray her friend, to Leon, who committed a crime, to Junko, whom he never knew much, to-

"Chihiro?" Ishimaru's eyes drift off to the side and he motions them back with force, locking them into place. Chihiro twists his mouth in response, ready to cry or back away. Taka hasn't looked in the mirror yet. Maybe the hammer took him worse. "Have you talked to-" Kiyotaka is pulling sandpaper out of his windpipe. He grits his teeth behind closed lips. "him?"

Chihiro lowers his head. "I really wanted to but," He continues the play with his jacket's hem. "Nobody has seen him since... you know. He never comes out of his room."

Kiyotaka stands up, Fujisaki following him with his eyes. "Thank you." He lightly bows again and leaves Chihiro behind.

Kiyotaka decides to knock. Maybe he remembers what Ishimaru's knocking sounds like.

Taka waits, his knuckle still raised, ready for another try. He doesn't have a plan on what to do if he doesn't open. Does he even have a reason to open? Probably not, not even for him. Especially not for him.

The door opens. Kiyotaka's hand wouldn't fit through the gap that formed. He only sees darkness and what could be a face behind it. He doesn't say anything.

"Let me in," Kiyotaka demands. His skin curls at the ice in his voice, as if it wants to escape its owner to a warmer place. There's a sighing behind the door and the gap between door and frame widens, just enough for Taka to slip in.

His room is almost sterile. The walls are empty, the flags and banners, along with his coat, are curled up under the desk like they're hiding from something. The shelfs and the table are clean and all that has been on them has disappeared. The light hanging over the table is turned off and Kiyotaka's stomach twists like he dirties the vacuum after he's switched it on.

The only sign that someone, something is living here is the bed. The sheets are crumpled up, lone stains have sprinkled on them, the same faded red like Kiyotaka's uniform. The pillow is pressed flat from overuse and clips of hair spread over the cover. Inbetween it all lays an unopened pack of razors. Whatever lives here seems to be a beast.

"I'm sorry." He sounds like he hasn't spoken in years, or like he has been screaming for the same amount of time. Kiyotaka turns around.

It feels like he is dragging his brain out of his wound when he thinks. Whoever this is meant to be, he is not the Mondo Owada that Kiyotaka has known. He is a shell, what is left after you scavenge him.

He looks like a clay statue that is yet to be hardened. His face has melted as if his bones have been swimming in vinegar for a week. Skin flows away from his eye sockets and reveal the red, veiny inside of his eyelid, his lip is hanging on one side as if he has lost the strength to hold it up. His right shoulder begins at his armpit and looks like it will fall off any second. His skin has gone from tan to yellow like a corpse hidden deep in the woods. What once has been his hair is now a bombsite, chopped off, with craters, uneven.

Mondo looks weak. In all ways broken and in all ways abandoned.

There is a part in Kiyotaka that wants to take him into his arms, smooth his hair and tell him that they'll be alright. There is a part that wants Mondo to do the same for him. There is a part that wants to press his lips onto his and suck up everything that hollows him, even if that meant his own end. But that part is like a whisper compared to the part of Ishimaru that wants to put his hands around his neck and force him out of his life.

"That is the least you can do," Kiyotaka replies. His teeth feel close to their breaking point but Taka clenches his jaw even tighter. He can't clutch his hands to fists, otherwise there would be a way out for the anger under his seal.

Mondo runs his hand through, or over, his hair. "Kyou-" He bites the side of his lower lip that is still in place. "Ishimaru." Kiyotaka feels a pang in his chest, a wail, an anwer. "I dunno what else to do. I-" Mondo sighs and looks at him, his eyes are glassy, the violet nearly grey. "I get that you hate me, and it's good that you do. You shouldn't be here, not dead and not for me."

Kiyotaka is disgusted by himself and the way Mondo can snap him like a toothpick. Kiyotaka softens in the truth of his words, his anger dissolves in the acidic hate for himself. Everything inside Ishimaru tilts to Mondo, desires to push away all that has happened and unite with him again. Kiyotaka keeps himself in check but his seal is crumbling.

"I don't hate you." He can see Mondo's canine grinding on his lower jaw. "I _want_ to hate you. With all that I have."

The feeling of fire begins to rim around Kiyotaka's eyes and a tear floods over the edge. "You have hurt me and so many others. You've-" He doesn't want to cry, for once, he just wants to yell at him, see the shock in his face, that Kiyotaka has dried out and broken, that he's throwing his fragments at him.

"You've disappointed me! You've lied to me, you've lied to _yourself_!" He is shouting now but the tears drown him and his words, make them sound like mud dripping out of his mouth. Ishimaru's legs move on their own and he marches over to Mondo and latches onto the straps of his tank top. Mondo is expressionless.

"Why can't I hate you, for God's sake?" Kiyotaka sees a drop of spit land on Mondo's cheek and hears fabric ripping as he pulls on his clothes. "_Why_?" Taka's fists are banging on Mondo's chest. He stays silent, unresponsive, letting the flood wash over him.

Why does Mondo just let it happen? Why doesn't he hiss "Shut up," why doesn't he shove him away, why doesn't he punch him?

Why can't he just be a bad person? Why is Mondo exactly the man that Taka loves him as?

"You need time," Mondo says and Kiyotaka wriggles in his skin. He exhales shakily and steps back. "_You_ need help," he argues. Mondo hums in agreement. "I know." Mondo's eyes meet his with the exhaustion and gratitude of a man who has been saved from starvation. "But you first."

Kiyotaka can't stand looking at him any longer. He has to crush his heart before it can break him.

"Clean up your room. Your coat will catch dust."

Mondo doesn't turn around as Kiyotaka leaves the room, wishing he had somewhere to go.


End file.
